University of Texas professors are revolting. In response to the passage of campus carry legislation SB 11 prohibiting state-funded institutions of higher learning from banning legal concealed carry as of August 16, 2016, UT teaching staff are adding their names to a Google document entitled 160+ UT PROFESSORS REFUSE GUNS IN THEIR CLASSROOMS. Refuse how, you ask? Now there’s a question. One which UT history prof and co-creator of the doc Dr. Joan Neuberger doesn’t answer. To be fair . . .

the student journos at dailytexansonline.com didn’t ask Dr. Neuberger if she and/or her anti-gun colleagues had any plans for civil disobedience in the face of Americans’ lawfully exercising their civil rights. But the paper kinda sorta addressed the “what next?” issue with a UT PR lecturer (of all things).

Public relations lecturer Dave Junker said he found the list through Facebook and added his name to publicly state his opposition to campus carry. He said he hopes the law is repealed, or at least, that guns will not be allowed in classrooms, or that faculty get to determine policies in their own classrooms.

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

I wonder if the lecturers at Virginia Tech would wish they’d adopted the wary mindset Junker fears.

Just in case you find a list of 160+ professors opposing Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms depressing, dailytexanonline.com writer Selah Maya Zighelboim ends her report with a heartening comment from a clued-in, albeit anti-gun student.

Biology junior Kiran Pilla, who opposes campus carry, said she does not believe the list will influence how the University implements campus carry.

“Petitions raise awareness, but I don’t think they generally impact legislation,” Pilla said. “Public opinion does not make laws. It’s not a direct democracy.”

Make no mistake: Governor Abbot would fire any UT professor who violated a student’s right to keep and bear arms. The idea that UT professors would risk their tenure to do so is laughable. But not impossible. Watch this space.

Note how many are from fields of study that (a) require real thought and (b) can have very bad real-world consequences if (a) is in error. Maybe a few percent? Depending on how you categorize some of the fuzzier sciences.

I count 85 just from the English, History, and Radio/Film/TV. Nothing against anyone studying in those fields, but this is about what I would expect.

I used to be adjunct faculty at a Business school. During my time there I got to know about 30 tenure track faculty pretty well. I can’t imagine more than 2 of them would sign on to something like this.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

I would hate to see some nut go in there a shoot those poor unarmed smarty-pants , F- Shameful and sad that folks hold these people up as intelligent ./ Just goes to show that education does not correlate into intelligence and definitely not into common sense . How very sad we are here , pack up boys and girls and transfer to WVU .

As of when I read the list, I saw exactly one: electrical and computer engineering. The remainder of the list is what you would expect: majors you’ve never heard of and majors that have no measurable influence on the real world.

It is my understanding that engineers apply Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Statistics to the real world. In other words they account for the differences between theoretical stuff on paper and what actually happens/works in the real world.

That being the case, I can see where a large number of engineers would see through the fantasy theory of gun control and therefore reject it.

Yea, that’s about it. As I like to tell people, “when doctors screw up, they might kill someone. Emphasis on ‘one’. When engineers screw up, dozens to hundreds of people can die from one little mistake.”

Hence, engineers tend to attend to their numbers and what they mean carefully. And then they design in a safety margin.

Want to see engineers fly off the handle, and go positively ape in a business meeting? Come in as an executive with a supposed “engineering specification” that has bogus numbers in it that will endanger people. I’ve seen people thrown into walls over this stuff. The one engineer who accurately predicted that the shuttle Challenger would blow up by launching in freezing temps was nearly to the fist-fight stage the night before the launch.

Don’t lie to engineers with numbers. By and large, we’re going to kick someone’s ass – hard – when we find a lie that endangers personal or public safety. And that’s part of what made me a RKBA proponent – I did the numbers back in the early 90’s when the data was scarce and we didn’t have easy access to the ‘net yet. Still, even with the paucity of studies, and the dead tree data (which made things more difficult to enter into software to analyze it) for people versed in statistics, you could see the public policy implications:

1. Law abiding people are, well, law-abiding. ie, “shall issue” CCW permits were never going to result in “blood in the streets,” cats sleeping with dogs, storms that rained hamsters, etc. It just wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

2. The “gun violence” problem today is the same as the “gun violence” problem 20+ years ago – heck, going back all the way to the late 60’s. It is an inner city, black neighborhood, black-on-black violence & crime problem that gun control will never, ever fix.

3. “Assault weapons” are a canard and distraction issue, and they contribute almost nothing to crime. The guns most often used in crime are handguns, period, full stop.

4. Studies going back to the 70’s show that criminals fear armed people and people with guns in their homes. Criminals fear two things on a “hot prowl:” an armed homeowner and home with a large dog. Time and time again, interviews with criminals who rob houses confirm this. The last thing the professionals want to run into is an armed homeowner. Their crime is a business for them. Getting shot isn’t good for profits.

5. FBI UCR stats show that the more force you use to resist crimes against your person (mugging, assault, rape, etc), the better your outcomes. The whole LEO schtick of “give them what they want” was never good advice, under most any circumstances.

6. Stats even 20+ years ago showed that CCW holders were more reticent and careful about using armed force than cops, and had fewer “bad shoots” than cops.

All that could be seen 20+ years ago, and when we (the various RKBA engineers in Silicon Valley) started teasing this stuff out of the government stats and studies, we started the uphill climb to where we are today.

Math works. The trouble in the gun debate is that there are a huge number of people in government, politics and especially the press who are innumerate.

If only 160 anti gun profs would not allow concealed carriers. I would love to see then have no Jobs. Students shoudk organize a counter protest so the orofs no who to not allow in class. Give them enough rope to hang themselves.

My immediate family is heavily involved in academia. I know most of them would have exactly zero problems with licensed carry in their classrooms. Unfortunately, as both of them have tenures in NJ, the chance of that being tested is slightly lower than Putin and the commie Pope breaking out the mankinis and marching in a Gay Pride parade.

I am an educator, listen to ME as I educate you on what is good for you. Constitution………that archaic piece of paper is in a museum……where it belongs. Listen to what I have demanded………I have rights you know……

I believe quite strongly that we should be able to fire “educators” quickly and with minimum hassle. They’re public employees, and they have their job at the pleasure of the public (ie, taxpayers). There should never be any such thing as “tenure.” I teach part-time at a community college and they can sack my butt any time they want. So it should be for all full-time faculty – regardless of how long they’ve been there.

Firing a couple dozen college professors every semester somewhere in the US, semester after semester would do much to reverse the left’s “long march through our institutions” by letting them know that the golden rule in in force: “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

To be fair, the tenure system was designed to keep politics out of the educational space. That way, a professor who has proven their merit can focus on either research (profitable to the scientific community but not the university) or lecturing (not nearly as profitable to the community but more so to the university) without undue pressure. This is important as good basic research rarely shows marketable results, but is essential to applied research elsewhere in the community. How many decades do you think were spent at various colleges working on various LED chemistries before we came up with printable OLED screens? Examples abound, but this principle is critical to chemistry, physics, math, and biology. Often basic research in these fields makes drastic advances in computers, robotics, energy systems, and medicine possible.

NOTE: I agree that tenure at anything less than the University level is absurd.

It’s a double-edged sword. The same tenure system that protects the delusional Marxists currently infesting academia also keeps those same Marxist progbots from firing everyone who disagrees with them.

Would you be okay with a “fire anyone at any time” academic system if your worst enemies were in charge of it? (Because in many places, if not most, they would be.)

The Marxists are already in control of who gets hired. Those decisions should be taken away from the faculty and invested in only the trustees and their appointed members of the administration. Professors should be nothing more than the hired help. They can either produce results, or hit the bricks.

Actually my understanding is that Texas *is* a right-to-work state. To clarify any potential misunderstanding, “Right to Work” means you have the right to work, or not, irrespective of your membership in any union and your employer has the right to employ you, or not, at his or her whim.

You are correct. Obviously, hiring and firing can not be based on discrimination by any of the federally or state protected classes, but other than that, fire away. Specifically, in this case, the university has every legal right to fire the faculty if they attempt the obstruction of state law. By the way, that certainly includes tenured faculty.

Mixing two concepts: “Right to work” means that an employer cannot require you to join a labor union as a condition of employment; it basically outlaws the “union shop” or “closed shop”. “At-will employment” means that the employer can fire someone for any reason or no reason; it is limited, of course, by some allegedly Constitutionally-based doctrines, mostly created out of whole cloth by the Supremes, but there they are. Texas is both a “right-to-work” and an “at-will employment” state.

If I had to guess, the professors in this protest have lots of other transgressions that should cost them their jobs. So, if this is the straw that gets them gone, good!
Having an MS for UTSA, my observations was that the Engineering, CS, Business, and Math Departments were good and very solid, however, the other departments are not much use.

You are so right! Guns are dangerous, just like blacks, hispanics, italians, jews, etc…. At the very least, individual teachers should be allowed to ban any of those things from their classroom.
Rights, especially those specifically mentioned in the Constitution, are so over-rated.
(Sarc off)

Colorado called, campus carry is fine. I carry in class everyday along with the other 1 in 20 Colorado adults with CHPs. Obviously that’s over 21 but to think that in a given junior or senior level class of size 20 a student is lawfully carrying and there hasn’t been a single or crime or accident for the better part of 7 years is proof enough that we aren’t the problem and we make campus safer.

1) It always amazes me that the anti-gun crowd focuses on their imagined scenarios of what “might” happen as gun laws are liberalized, rather than looking at the situation in places where those changes have already happened. But I guess if they were data-driven…they’d be one of us.

2) “Rape culture,” to the extent it exists, will go away overnight with campus carry. Nothing says “no” better than suddenly looking down the barrel of a gun. [And this is why we’re winning. Ultimately, we’re trying to empower the individual, and American society is slowly coming to understand this.]

It always amazes me that the anti-gun crowd focuses on their imagined scenarios of what “might” happen as gun laws are liberalized …

What always amazes me is that gun-grabbers’ imagined scenarios are “legitimate” reasons to curtail our rights, but our imagined scenarios are not adequate reasons to exercise our rights.

For clarification, gun-grabbers’ imagined scenarios are armed students, coworkers, patrons, etc. “going postal” and suddenly shooting up a place … which happens maybe once a year. Our imagined scenarios are being the victims of violent crimes … which happens more than 1 million times each year. But somehow we who are armed in case of violent crime are the paranoid, unstable, unhinged, irrational people.

I just imagined putting all 168 + profs on a bus , driven by a drunken Teddy Kennedy ( substitute any alive , drunken Kennedy ) for a field trip to an anti gun rally , located on the other side of a waterway accessed only by a long bridge , and let nature take its coarse . Imagine and dream wet dreams .

BDub , let me know if someone can pull this together and I’ll bring the motor home , a fine bottle of wine , my best HD camera , a couple very sweet $ 200.00 cigars and some comfortable chairs and we can chit chat . Sounds fun .

Hilarious! 30.06 is a law that allows businesses the right to prohibit people from doing something that no one knows they are doing….. lol. These professors are scared that people can now do something that that they have no idea that they are doing – that is completely hilarious. Such dorks. And to think they are allowed to go to the University without parental supervision.

Last year I attended class at a local college and carried a “Blue Gun” concealed on me every class. I know that it was not “Firearm” or a “Weapon”, but it looked like a pistol and, because no on ever saw it, no one ever said a thing. Concealed means hidden from ordinary view.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

So whats changed? This is what happens when you’ve lived with a false sense of security for so long. Reinforced with feel good legislation thats nothing more than illusion, you go bonkers with actual awareness when the bubble of security theatre is popped and claw tooth and nail to restore the bubble.

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

IGNORE THEM !
Carry your firearm concealed neatly under your garment or in your purse , it’s legal . Don’t tell anyone you have it and only remove it if you or your classmates are threatened . If someone barges into class and shoots the prof , leave it holstered and be a good witness .

No, actually we pay them to educate us, whether we are getting good value is another matter. We already know we are smarter, more capable, and more motivated than they are; after all they are government employees.

You know, we are dealing here with the kind of people that go bananas and schedule a campus-wide “anti-hate” rally over a few pieces of string that were left behind when someone pulled paper lamps down from some trees after an outdoor party. And in fact, held the “rally” and issued momentuous statements and announced the development of new “diversity” plans to combat this “evil” even after they were told it was only pieces of string left behind from some outdoor-party paper lamps. In other words, completely mindless drones totally driven by the PC-ism of the moment.

Actually, they were protesting because an African-American Studies major (who is white, IIRC) convinced herself that the pieces of string were “nooses” left there by the virulent racists infesting the U of Delaware campus, as they infest everything, everywhere, all the time, etc. etc. Within a few hours it became patently clear that they were not, but hey, if there isn’t any overt racism to battle against, just create some then pat yourself on the back for not participating in it and ram some more politically-correct garbage down everyone else’s throat so they will do penance for participating in the culture that led to the overt racism that wasn’t there till you created it. Sorta like, if there isn’t that much “gun violence” to start with, then create some that isn’t there (” a bazillion school shootings since Newtown”) and go forward…

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

So how does the law change anything? Hasn’t this been the same circumstance since a hundred years ago?

“Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

You already don’t know if a student has a gun you fool! Anyone, at any time, can carry a gun anywhere; there is nothing preventing anyone from physically doing that. What, do they really think that these gun free zones magically vaporize all guns once they cross the threshold? Are they really that delusional?

Hey , forget civil rights , what about Constitutional rights . They already have stepped all over the 1st Amendment in the classrooms , and if they try and enforce their no guns in class desires they’ll probably have to violate the 4th A and in doing so will trounce the 5th A . What about the 13th A , it could be argued that they are forcing involuntary servitude on kids with the kind of expense they incur to be indoctrinated into Progressive Land .

Fire the teacher that is to stupid to understand the “Bill of Rights” because if they don’t comprehend HOW can they teach?No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

And the brain trust at UT Austin is unable to see how this will almost certainly dissuade some violent criminals from attacking students on campus?

There’s actually nothing wrong with the grammar — just substitute “empty” for “safe”. The error is in the timing: since it has always been possible for someone to show up armed and do a ‘Virginia Tech’, it has NEVER been safe space — but now it’s safer.

Like anyone else. If the disobey the law and its a fireable offense.
Let them go, or maybe they will take a stand and quit. Which I doubt very much.
Replace them with real educators instead of the liberal crap they tend to spew on most campuses now.

What, because guns are evil? Then by all means, follow your logic to it’s conclusion. Don’t allow anyone (police, military, etc.) onto your campus’ that uses guns. Period. After all, guns magically make anyone wielding them evil, right? The police and miltiary should be no exception to this magical rule.

Oh, except criminals that are actually evil, so evil guns won’t affect them, ya? Besides, they have this annoying tendency to ignore the law and gun-free zone signage anyway.

Let us know how it turns out. And I hope you’re liable for all the victims and sheeple you’re putting in harm’s way.

Yeah, because concealed carriers are the portion of population that one needs to worry about considering they are the most law abiding group of citizens in the country – definitely don’t worry about the criminal who will bring a firearm in a class to do something terrible whether there is a law against it or not.

Give the professors the choice of the following scenarios:

Scenario A – out of a class of 100 students, say 2 are CHL holders. One terrible person in the hall decides to come into the lecture hall and start shooting. Say both CHL holders fire and one hits criminal. Damage to other students remains somewhat minimized, possibly a victim or two before criminal gets taken out. While this is still bad (anyone being injured or killed is terrible), but imagine our next scenario:

Scenario B – Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Aurora, etc. Bad guy with a gun, no good guys with a gun. See what occurs.

We know where the professors stand as they obviously chose scenario B and to stick their head in the sand. I know where I stand (considering I carry concealed everywhere the law allows me to).

Refuse? As in unlawfully forbidding a student to enter “their” classroom? Or might they go instead with illegal retribution by doling out failing grades to any student who dares to lawfully carry a concealed weapon in “their” classroom?

Maybe the all the liberal elitist anti-gun professors will just quit. Who does the Governor and State Legislature think they are with this campus carry legislation? Most of the liberal Professors who refuse to be victims of democracy by defying the new and widely popular State law probably don’t even need their public employee $200K and up annual salaries anyway because as they constantly remind us, they can make a lot more in the private sector anyway. Perhaps the UT Board of Regents will make use of their handsomely compensated faculty to estimate how many millions UT will likely pay in civil suit settlements and judgments. But then again, why the hell should they care, it’s all on the taxpayers dime, so “what difference does it make anyway”.

Most Texans would $#it if they were aware of the massive salaries paid to UT faculty members. For example; the top 10 UT Math Department professors have annual salaries ranging from $240K to $560K; the top 10 UT Law School professors have annual salaries ranging from $323K to $601K.

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”
–UT-Austin public relations lecturer Dr. Dave Junker

Second: how many of your students are age 21 or older? They’re the only ones who can legally be licensed to carry a sidearm…with a limited few exceptions (current & former military, et al.).

Third: for a “doctor of letters”, you sure are paranoid…why’s that? You’re demonstrating the type of behavior expected of the criminal element the CHL law was passed for: “Be Afriad…Be Deathly Afraid” (of your potential victim’s capability to defend himself/herself).

Kim Davis went to jail for not obeying the law, Constitution was cited. Will College employees be carted away in a paddy wagon for going against what adds up to be our Constitutional Rights? Davis only challenged two people for a license, these people potentially endanger many people’s lives!

I am shocked and surprised everyone questioned and mocked this obviously brilliant prof about how she would know. Don’t you see the obvious? NAKED COURSEWORK!! Just change title of class to (course name) Nude or (course name) In the Raw. Then ban all bags of any sort and voila!!

Now if the hippies could only figure out how to get all the hot chicks pics added to their course roster descriptions during course ad week, they might win

Sad. How will the students make it in life without being propagandized by leftist loon professors in an overpriced university? Without that piece of parchment announcing that you endured 4 years of non stop brainwashing those kids will never be allowed to sit in the hallowed halls of the media, academia, or civil service.

The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. George Wallace, the Democratic Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” and stop the desegregation of schools, stood at the door of the auditorium to try to block the entry of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood.[1]

You are absolutely correct; few of these professors are going to do much of anything. Some might cry and moan a little, some who are very very close to retiring may do more, but as a whole it will be the usual anti gun whining then inaction.

Profs like to run roughshod over students , as it is the status quo , and threaten students ( conservative or questioning inquisitive type ) with poor grades or humiliation if they express any decent from the Progressive culture being forced on them and having an armed student might give them cause to be a little weak kneed .

How would UT (or any) profs enforce their wishes? Body scanners at every classroom door? Pat downs for every student? Without direct security measures, giving the profs the flexibility they desire is nothing but a paper tiger.

Though I could see some of the lecherous swine employed in the hallowed halls of higher education totally being all about patting down every student…the amount of microagressions and triggers would pile up in about five seconds for the poor little children.

That’s how you couch the defense, by the way. Point out that there’s no way to really enforce a “no-carry-in-the-classroom” statute, without having to take drastic security measures, most of which will offend the hell out of the delicate little students.

Professors are used to the quaint idea that they are in absolute control of what goes on in their classrooms, and what they say regarding their totalitarian cosmos goes. Most seem to think it extends to wherever they happen to find themselves. Yet another reason I’m glad to be done with alleged higher education.

They like to promote the view that campus carry removes restrictions placed on criminals. What it actually does is untie the hands of the law-abiding to stop said criminals. Laws don’t stops crooks: people with guns enforcing them do.

“It’s hard to imagine what I will do if a student walks into my class with a concealed weapon,” Junker said in an email. “Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell. Maybe that is the worst part: never knowing if a student has a gun but having to assume that someone does.”

The cognitive dissonance (or the stupid) is strong with this one.

Concealed is concealed. If a law-abiding student walks into your classroom carrying a concealed firearm, you’ll never know it, and nothing will happen. On the other hand, if someone bent on harm walks into your classroom, you’ll know he has it, because he’ll take it out and start shooting innocent people. In that case, no law, policy, rule, or petition will stop him from carrying a firearm, or from carrying out his evil intent.

How about you consider the viewpoint from a safety perspective. I teach numerous lab courses. What is the effect of a flammable solvent on bullets and/or gunpowder? Or a corrosive acid? Caustic base? Free radical polymerization initializer? Other chemicals you may have never heard of that are volatile and might find their way to a loaded weapon? I, for one, don’t want to find out the hard way that some of these interactions might be deadly, irrespective of the safety-consciousness of the gun owner. Lab accidents happen, especially in teaching labs. Labs are no place for guns.

Additionally, college is where children learn to become adults. Just because someone is 21 does not make that person an adult. I have had numerous students cry in my office and become emotionally unstable when I call them in to discuss how I caught them cheating. This type of meeting is obviously confidential, but what do I do if I suspect my student is carrying? Do I need an officer to sit in on every meeting with me, in case this almost-adult gets emotional and realizes his or her future ambitions might be over (have you met a pre-med student before)? I shouldn’t have to pack heat simply because I fear my students will be.

And finally, when was there an event where students with guns stopped a gunman? Go look up yourself what the pro gun websites say about police officer shot accuracy. Yes, overall numbers are skewed down due to night shootings, but even well lit scenarios have accuracies that I would deem unacceptable in my classroom. Now throw in UNTRAINED students that are trying to fire back. Who will get shot? The gunman or just more bystanders? I found references to Whitman in Austin, and an Israeli student in Israel. I wouldn’t call that a ringing endorsement.

“..Do I need an officer to sit in on every meeting with me?”
No, no you do not.
Did you need an officer present in all the years prior to keep student from stabbing you to death with their pencils? An object is not an intent. You don’t become a murderer because you own a gun.

“..I shouldn’t have to pack heat simply because I fear my students will be.”
You don’t. Your FEAR is your problem. In the rational world we don’t base legislation on unfounded emotions. Ignorance often breeds fear, so if you are afraid of something that the majority of people are not, I suggest you attend to the state of your education.

“Go look up yourself what the pro gun websites say about police officer shot accuracy.”
You know what kills a lot more people than bad accuracy? Herds of defenseless student being slaughtered slowly and methodically by an *UNTRAINED, INACCURATE* lunatic while they hide under their desks. That HAS happened. The “friendly fire killing people scenario” statistically has NOT happened, despite MILLIONS of people concealed carrying every day across the country.

Again, all of your points are stale. These wild emotional claims have been debunked ad-nauseum for over 2 DECADES now. Please move on, or at the very least, educate yourself (education IS what a professor does, isn’t’ it?)

We are not your enemy. Ignorance is your enemy. Ignorance of the reality of concealed carry, mixed with a unhealthy dose of Hollywood NON-reality.

A wise man once said: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Benjamin Franklin)

I teach numerous lab courses. What is the effect of a flammable solvent on bullets and/or gunpowder? Or a corrosive acid? Caustic base? Free radical polymerization initializer? Other chemicals you may have never heard of that are volatile and might find their way to a loaded weapon? I, for one, don’t want to find out the hard way that some of these interactions might be deadly, irrespective of the safety-consciousness of the gun owner. Lab accidents happen, especially in teaching labs. Labs are no place for guns.

What do you think a concealed-carrying student is going to do? Drop his magazine, start emptying it of cartridges, and then chuck them into the hood?

Further: it’s just lead and gunpowder, sealed inside the cartridge. Without setting off the primer, and without the cartridge being inside the controlled volume space of the barrel, nothing can happen. (I will assume that you have a working understanding of the Ideal Gas Law.)

Learn even a modicum of the chemistry and physics behind firearms, and you will disabuse yourself of such specious concerns.

Additionally, college is where children learn to become adults. Just because someone is 21 does not make that person an adult.

The inability of someone to be responsible for his own actions, at any age, is no reason to infringe upon the rights of those who are responsible.

This type of meeting is obviously confidential, but what do I do if I suspect my student is carrying?

The night is dark and full of terrors, prof. Life is hard, and freedom is fraught with risk. Learn to use a firearm, find one with which you’re comfortable, and get in the habit of carrying.

Do I need an officer to sit in on every meeting with me, in case this almost-adult gets emotional and realizes his or her future ambitions might be over (have you met a pre-med student before)? I shouldn’t have to pack heat simply because I fear my students will be.

Oh, I see: you’re not willing to take responsibility for your own safety. Somehow, I’m not surprised.

And finally, when was there an event where students with guns stopped a gunman?

Conversely: when was there an event where someone bent upon evil perpetrated that intent upon a populace that he knew to be armed? People who plan shooting sprees don’t go places where they know people will be armed; rather, they target gun-free zones.

What if even one teacher, staff member, janitor, or any other adult in the building had been armed that day?

So your position is that legal adults who you feel are immature should be able to handle dangerous chemicals, but not guns?
Acid throwing attacks are on the rise.
Still, I was handling firearms while still in the single digits of age. Trusted to keep one in my closet, with ammo, as a matter of fact.
The schools would not introduce me to chemistry until I was 12.
Again, both of those ages are well under 18.
Those same dangerous chemicals you speak of are quite hazardous to humans as well. If my firearm is on my person, in order for such chemicals to reach my firearm I would also be exposed. Maybe we need to just stop allowing immature students (and instructors) to access those chemicals.
I know of no enumerated right to chemistry, after all. Better that teachers stick to teaching and stop trying to control the rights of others.

“What is the effect of a flammable solvent on bullets and/or gunpowder?”
Fortunately, concealed means CONCEALED. Student aren’t going to be dunking their firearms in the nearest beaker full of chemicals just to see what happens. 😉

That said, modern metallic cartridges are fully *sealed*, then encased cased in steel box magazine, and that steel box is then full enveloped in a steel or polymer firearm frame. Realistically you have a higher risk of splashed chemicals reacting to the lithium in the student’s smart-phone batteries.

WOW !
Great comment Prof. I can see clearly now by your carefully worded comment and astute grasp on common sense that I would definitely not want my child under your tutelage . Thank you for your input .

Without going through all the other comments, I go to the main point. A person that is willing to commit grave bodily harm or death with a handgun will not be deterred by the fact that the professor (or whomever they are intent on hurting) has a gun free classroom.

OK, the UT chapter of Campus Carry needs to hold a meeting. Divide the professors into two sub-lists:
– those to boycott;
– those to study under.

The criteria to use to put a professor on one list or the other will be pretty subjective; but each treatment serves its purpose.

A professor who has too few students signing up for his classes may be “broken” if he looses just a few more students. Those from Campus-Carry and those who don’t carry but are somewhat open-minded on the subject.

A professor who teaches an essential class that too many students need to take can’t be boycotted. A professor who is really vociferous needs to be confronted. CC members and especially their non-member friends with CWPs need to sign-up for this professor’s classes. Word will soon spread that he is attracting concealed-carriers like bears to honey. However, he won’t know who to retaliate against. Particularly stealth CWPers who don’t openly support Camus-Carry.

What will the professors do? Threaten to pat-down the students at random? A male professor with female students? Vice versa? Metal detectors? How about co-eds with underwire bras and flash-bang holsters?

Nothing like a conflagration to keep the subject of gun-control on the front page.

In light of the Oregon community college shooting I hope these teachers are hounded by reporters or students to explain their plan for a future crazy shooter who decided to kill christians on the campus grounds.